Casting of metal and metal alloys is typically completed by melting metal cathode or scrap and then alloying the metal to desired chemistry. The primary method for producing metal alloys is to melt the base metal in a melt furnace and then either alloy the metal in the melt furnace or transfer the metal to a holding/casting furnace and alloy the metal at that point.
Continuous casting of metals can be done either through the bottom of the melt container, through the wall of the melt container (horizontal casting) or using upward casting process. Documents relating to the upward casting process are for example U.S. Pat. No. 2,553,921 and WO 02/20194 A1.
In upward casting process the profiled metal products are continuously cast by maintaining a water-cooled metal nozzle immersed into a melt to receive and cool the melt. The nozzle is immersed so deep into the melt that the point of solidification of the received melt is below the surface level of the outside melt and the solidified melt is then pulled upwards while being further cooled.
The problems with the above-mentioned casting processes are that it is not economically possible to cast small volumes of alloyed metal. Also for the casting that involves for example copper alloys (CuCr, CuZr, CuTi, etc.) that have a high affinity for oxygen and carbon are not possible to continuously cast in a production environment.